A beginners guide to Content marketing!

Content marketing is no longer a buzz word or a passing fad. Statistics show that 82% of the marketers who blog daily acquire customers from their blogs and that consumers feel more positive about about a company after reading custom content on its website. As an IMC student at Northwestern university, I have studied various aspects of content marketing and want to share with you 2 articles that I think do a great job of explaining the 'how' and 'why' of content marketing.

Pam Dayer in an article on socialmediatoday.com, does a great job of breaking down the steps involved in creating engaging content.

1-Define the audience and business goals. The first step in creating a content strategy is defining the desired outcomes and understanding the target customer. This step answers questions like- the need for content marketing, buyer personas, key motivators, the social media platforms they are on, etc
2- Plan the content marketing strategy. This includes managing the work flow - who would be responsible for content creating, and the content marketing calendar - when does the content need to be published.
3- Create, Publish, Promote. Content should be created in different formats, for each stage in the buying cycle and should be optimized for SEO and Keywords. The next step would be to publish the content through the company website, blog, you tube, social media like Facebook, twitter, Pintrest, etc. Finally we need to promote the content via- social media, social bookmarking sites such as Reddit, internal links, by managing comments and feedback and maybe through mass media too.
4- Analyze. It is very important to understand whether the published content is engaging customers and is helping us achieve the goals that were developed in step 1. Various media analytic tools can be used for this process. Performance can also be monitored using KPIs

Now that we know the steps involved in content marketing, lets look at a company that is doing a great job of reaching its customers through great content.
In 2013, as a part of its content marketing plan, Chipotle released a 3 min video called ‘The scarecrow’, which was a follow up to its immensely popular video, ’Back to the start’. As explained by Karlene Lukovitz of Mediapost.com, the video tells the story of a dystopian world in which a scarecrow is forced to work in an industrial food factory, the message being, ’cultivate a better world’. The Scarecrow” was also designed to serve as the trailer for a free iOS game that let players earn buy-one-get-one free (BOGO) deals from
Chipotle. Supported by a small online and mobile ad campaign, plus PR outreach that generated more than half a billion media impressions, the game — which delivers sustainability messages in a fun way — was downloaded 500,000-plus times by mid-October. The Scare crow video has had over 12.5 million Youtube views to date.

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Every aspect of Chipotle’s brands strategy, including content marketing is deeply focused on reinforcing and building awareness of the “Food with Integrity” brand mission that supports its core differentiation— its promise to deliver “fast” food that’s not only fresh, but from sustainable sources wherever possible. Chipotle continues to be the envy of much-larger chains and brands because of the massive exposure it enjoys, despite its super-lean measured-media budgets.’ While it increased ad spending a little in 2013, its marketing costs as a percentage of sales is only about 1.6%. Chipotle has also taken an unconventional approach to its first loyalty program- The Farm Team. Instead of the typical frequency-based BOGO rewards system, this invitation-only program builds engagement by using a gamification strategy, and rewarding members for learning about food sourcing by taking online quizzes, and for sharing the knowledge via social media. One of Chipotle’s latest content marketing initiatives is a sponsored-content, “Food for Thought” area, within The Huffington Post site, dedicated to “creating awareness about how food is grown, raised and prepared and the effects this system has on us.” The platform offers posts and articles from experts and knowledgeable consumers — along with links to Chipotle’s videos and apps.

So how can you, as a marketer, learn from Chipotle's success and create a successful content marketing plan? Here are 3 action items to get you started-

• Create content marketing goals and KPI. The goals should look at content marketing as a strategy and not as a short term tactic.

• Get the buy in. Content marketing cannot be a success unless it resonates as a strategy throughout the organization. Make sure that the decision makers agree with your plan. 

• Create a content publishing calendar: Plan your content marketing strategy to reflect who will be working on content creation and when. 

As evident by Chipotle’s marketing success, content marketing is a great way to engage with customers in the long run. A well thought out content marketing plan can be as effective, if not more, than advertising, in moving customers through the purchase funnel and in helping them build a lasting relationship with a company.

Kavita Jain is currently working on her Masters in Integrated marketing communications at Northwestern university. With a keen interest in Digital marketing and Analytics, she is constant trying to make sense of the ever changing world of Digital marketing. You can follow her on twitter at @jainkavita and on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/kavitajain/.

5 Tips to Enhance Your Social Media Presence

After analyzing the presence of social media in more than 50 cooperate and non-profit organizations for my job at Northwestern Alumni Office, I feel a strong impulse to share my learning and give some advice. I know most people, no matter how much they are into the social media business, would not like to read almost each single post from 50 Facebook pages. My wild guess is…if you are not the person who writes every Facebook post or Twitter tweet of your company, you probably have never read all of these posts of your own business. OK. You can’t wait, can you? Here you go:

Post beautiful pictures about your products, animals who need to be adopted or your campus! Your posts are for humans, and humans are visual animals! (Don’t ask why Pinterest is getting popular anymore…) If you want your followers to know that your company has a new CSR initiative of helping children in the inner cities, please don’t post the first paragraph of your press release on your social media pages! Give your readers a picture of a smiling kid with an introduction of less than 140 characters (The Twitter rule applies to every social media platform). Trust me, the child’s smile would work much better than a bunch of rhetorical words.

Be personal. Again, Facebook is not somewhere to release your press release. It’s true that you represent an organization; it is also true that social media began with interpersonal communication. If you, as an organization, want to leverage social media magnetism, follow the rule and talk like a PERSON. If you are a fashion brand, “talk” like a young lady who tries to make herself beautiful everyday. If you are a college, “talk” about what college students care about: finals, commencement, or a new coffee shop where they would like to spend their afternoons.You’d better never talk like you are “offering” something great and your followers should pay for it with both money and gratitude. It’s you who should show gratitude for all the attention and followers you get. So, make your audience’s lives happier,prettier and easier with your posts.

Be consistent over your different social media platforms. I’ve seen organizations act like two totally different people on Facebook and Twitter: one is charming and intelligent, the other one is like a loser who has lost all  interest in life. Brands should always act like a woman in love, who tries to show the best side of her to her crush. So dress up for every occasion because you never know when your customers will be viewing your page. Don’t go out, or open your account on a new social media platform, if you are not ready to show your best side.

No more than 10 posts or tweets a day. Even if you are an attractive and sexy 20 something, do not walk around your secret crush’s window more than 10 times a day. It will lead to beauty fatigue and it only takes his one click on “unlike” or “unfollow”, and you are gone forever.  Less than 5 Facebook posts and 10 tweets is a good limit. After all, you don’t have so much information to share, do you? Too many posts or tweets are as annoying as spam emails.

Be a listener. There is a lot of advice telling you how to “talk” on social media platforms, but not how to “listen”.  If you go to some top brands’ Facebook or Twitter pages, you will find that they spent a lot of time answering questions or replying to posts from their followers. In a word, they listen. There was a famous case about how Chipotle avoided a PR disaster by quickly responding to a tweet about its failure to inform consumers about some of its ingredients. Don’t just re-tweet or “like” posts that mention you, please. When your followers bother to type your name in their posts, they don’t expect you to make them “famous” by retweeting their post; they did that to start a conversation with you, and you should feel grateful for their interest and efforts. If you are popular, like Starbucks, it may take you a long time to reply to every mention. So missing one or two may not matter too much for you. But it matters to that particular customer. 

     Some of my advice may not seem new to you; but this insight is generated from comprehensive research. As a Master’s student, who concentrates on Internet Marketing and Market Research, conclusion from data analysis is vital for me. I cannot accept people who just walk into the conference room and exclaim, “You know what? I am gonna trust my gut to initiate a new social media strategy and spend the 100,000 dollars!” Thanks to MedillIMC, who did a good job shape me from  a “free spirited” person to a data-driven, consumer centered marketing professional.

Katie Li is a current graduate student in the Northwestern Medill IMC marketing program, with 5 year work experience for Microsoft and Ogilvy in China. Katie decided to move to the U.S., when the death of her lifetime icon Michael Jackson revived her long-time dream of living in the U.S. Katie aims to find a job in the Internet Marketing and Global Marketing industries after graduation. She shares her learning, interest and passion towards her profession and life through @iamkatieli on Twitter and http://www.linkedin.com/in/katiewenli on LinkedIn.